Re: The Economics of Community at KPFA and Pacifica

[adrienne lauby <adrienne@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

" It's the same sort of conflict as what happens between teachers'
unions and communities (e.g., parents groups, student groups, etc.).
--
Yoshie"

I subscribed to PEN-L on Friday and I've got 346 messages in my
Pen-l mailbox.  It's overwhelming, exciting, strange, stimulating, ...

This morning I have time to address some of the questions
raised about KPFA and Pacifica, but where do I start?

Related threads:
Professionalization and staffing at KPFA
note from KPFA supporters of LSB
The Crisis at KPFA and Pacifica
The Economics of Community at KPFA and Pacifica

**Where did I see that misleading statement?
**Should I read everything on each thread very carefully?
**Should I read Yoshie's posts on some of these other threads?
**I'd sure like to read about Venezuela and Gary Trudeau.  Would that
be a distraction?

Yikes!  Tomorrow's a work day.  Yikes!

A similar institutional and informational overload permeates KPFA.  The
information and relationship barrage produced by 200 staff members, the
news of the day, the people who want some air time to get their message
across...  It's no wonder the listener movement wasn't greeted with open arms.

There's a culture of exhaustion and crisis at KPFA.  Most programmers
build walls around themselves--sometimes to protect their turf, other
times to function well enough to produce daily programming they
can be proud of.  The lines between turf protection and necessary
self-protection are often blurred.  It's constant everywhere in the world--I
need to know and be connected, but my focus and private life are also
essential.

Add one other element--poverty.  Neither staff (even the oh-so-privileged
paid staff) or listeners work jobs or otherwise have lives with leisurely
daily hours to think and clarify.

I'm asking for help here.  Help in negotiating the Pen-L world.  Help in
conceptionalizing an improvement in the KPFA world.  There is a better way
to function.  We could do better programming if we could structure ways
to build on what everyone knows, rather than putting up walls and popping
the occasionally potshot across the top.

It's so weird to hear partial stories
and half truths by other staff people.

ie
This is an issue of work-place mental health safety.
Listeners want to get rid of all the music programs.
Elections cost too much.

We, (call us the station board supporters) know that these are not
exactly the best statement of the truth possible.
Sometimes I hear similar sloganeering from station board supporters.
ie
You only talk to us when you want money.
Staff just want to keep their jobs.
White people run KPFA.

Sasha says this:
"-- and it leads some listeners, as I have encountered,
to believe that their $25 yearly donation makes them
my boss and that they can scream obscenities if they
don't like a program, if we choose not to do a show on
the use of satellite rays for mind control, if I
wasn't able to personally answer their call, etc."

Sasha's smart and savvy.  Her eyes are open.  She knows there
are insulting, hostile, arrogant, foolish, and self-centered people
among the staff members.  I don't confuse her with that staff guy
who asked the blind woman on our programming group,  did
she "bring her handler" with her to the studio.  KPFA has tens
of thousands of subscriber listeners, why is the listener
movement conflated with the worst examples of the species?

Here's something Sasha and I agree on:
'There is an urgent need for quality control, renewal, and long term
vision at KPFA and at Pacifica as a whole. Most of all, there is a
need to reach beyond our current small audiences."

The listeners movement has activated a grand potential and
many fine people within the KPFA community.  The new by-laws
and local-national board structure provide one way to integrate those
people without throwing the station into bankruptcy or death.
Many of my friends worked a heck of a lot of hours to get us to this
place.

If the staff at KPFA doesn't want to play ball with these rules and
on these courts, what else do they suggest?

My perception is that  they want to snuff out what we've worked to
build.  It's less than a year old but they are already complaining that
it's seriously flawed, takes too much money, and that they can't deal
with it.

Help us avoid the broken heart syndrome.  What will it take to grapple
honestly and deeply with the problems at KPFA?  What's possible as
a structural or conceptional basis for that discussion?

Adrienne Lauby
Producer, Pushing Limits
Pacifica Radio's KPFA
(707) 795-2890 (hm)